Cuban defector signed to $ 10 million contract in 2008. Hitting .322/.364/.528 with 15 homers, 20 walks, 65 strikeouts in 335 at-bats for Triple-A Charlotte. Power to all fields, should produce a solid batting average with plenty of homers despite so-so strike zone judgment. Poor defender at any position and likely a born DH, but he’ll hit. Age 22. Major League ETA: 2011.

“Right now I don’t think is the time,” Guillen said. “I don’t have space for [Viciedo] here, and I think we’re fine with what we have. Hopefully, we get [John] Danks back quickly, then we can make our pitching staff much stronger.

“Kenny asked me who’s available, what I have, what I need. What I need, we don’t have it. I wish I had another [Sergio] Santos, but I don’t have it.”

“I agree with Kenny in that we have to have more attitude,” Peavy told MLB.com. “We need a little more savvy and scrappiness. I’m saying in everything — pitching, defense, running bases, every aspect of our game. We have to find a way to play with a little more fire, a little more desire to win. I’m not saying there aren’t guys on this team who really want to win. But we need to get it in our blood. When we are at Wrigley Field, we have to flat out want to win more than the Cubs. It’s oozing out your pours. It will take a team with the talent like we have over the top.”

“The bottom line is we are four games behind a very good Detroit team. We can’t lay back. We have to show up every day, and for the next three hours, bust [our butts] and find a way to win. Get that mentality and attitude about us.”

#4, and #5 (swinging strike) are sliders. Result was a strike out on pitch #5.

3rd batter:

#2 (behind #4), #3, #4, and #6 (swinging strike) were sliders. Result was a strike out on pitch #6.

Steve Stone said in the beginning of the 9th that in Sergio’s blown save against Oakland the release point of his slider wasn’t the same with the release point of his fastball and batters could determine when a slider was coming and not swing at the slider, but wait for a fastball. Pitch F/X has graphs for both outings.

Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate.

Pitch Type LWTS correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a particular pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches.

Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement.

“My curveball’s always been my best pitch, and so I’ve always been real hesitant to go to a slider,” Humber said. “Because I’ve always been told sometimes guys with good curveballs, if they start throwing a slider, they lose their curveball. From what I heard, you kind of lose the feel for what you’re doing, because it’s a real similar pitch, but it’s not the same. So it’s hard to separate the two.”

Humber’s two best pitches this season have been his 12-6 curveball and his straight changeup. Since entering the rotation, he’s thrown his curveball on 24.6 percent of pitches; his changeup, 22.1 percent. Humber’s effectiveness with his curveball has been key in his turnaround, as it’s gone from a good to a great pitch. …

The White Sox announced their starting pitchers for the upcoming home series against the Tigers and Mariners, and the alignment shows their six-man rotation lives on.

Mark Buehrle opens the three-game weekend set at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday against the Tigers, followed by Edwin Jackson and Jake Peavy. John Danks gets the call Monday against the Mariners, with manager Ozzie Guillen simply wanting to give a healthy Danks the extra day of rest behind Peavy, followed by Philip Humber and Gavin Floyd.Humber has made the White Sox decision to move away from the six-man a difficult one. The right-hander has more recent relief experience, but he also has been the team’s most consistent starter.

Guillen indicated during Wednesday’s pregame interview session at Fenway Park how the six-man rotation would stick at least one more turn. But in that same talk with reporters, Guillen mentioned how the six-man rotation could last through the All-Star break.

“Well, it’s kind of funny, after the All-Star break, we have a lot of days — maybe 12 days with guys without pitching. Then it changes a little bit,” Guillen said. “Before the All-Star break, I want those guys to catch up and breathe for the long stretch.

“Now we have that six-man [rotation], then boom, we go into the All-Star break and we have to figure out to go five or six. In the beginning, we should go with five, because some guys will be spending 10 days without pitching. Obviously they’ll be in the bullpen and throwing on the side and stuff, but it’s not the same.”

RE24 (runs above average by the 24 base/out states): RE24 is the difference in run expectancy (RE) between the start of the play and the end of the play. That difference is then credited/debited to the batter and the pitcher. Over the course of the season, each players’ RE24 for individual plays is added up to get his season total RE24. … Why you should care: RE24 tells you how many runs a player contributed to his team. It’s similar to WPA (except in runs), but unlike WPA it does not take into account the inning or score of the game. Therefore, it is a more context neutral statistic. It does however take into account how many runners are on base and how many outs are left in the inning.

Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate.

Pitch Type LWTS correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a particular pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches.

Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement.

May 29, 2011

“Right now we’re a little confused,” Guillen chuckled Saturday morning. “We’re very confused. The six-man rotation puts a lot of load on Crain. If Pena goes out there and does what he should do, I don’t mind staying in a six-man rotation. We even talk about leaving it like that, but my worry is how much Crain will work. He’s the only right-hander we have with (Sergio) Santos. I use Santos as a closer, there is a very big gap out there to cover. Hopefully Pena comes on and does a better job.”
…
“I wish Pena could be used when we’re winning to help Crain, and we’d be fine. Everybody else is pretty young. We’re still talking about it every day. Every day we change our mind. (Pitching coach) Don Cooper comes up with good ideas. To make the right decision, right now in my mind, I don’t think what I have is the right decision. We have to wait and play around with it. You see this kid (Phil) Humber throw, and (John) Danks, and it’s kind of hard. We will work it out. But right now I’m between.”

“A lot of people in Chicago thought how crazy you are you were down by one and you brought in Pena,” Guillen said. “I don’t have anybody else. I used Crain the night before and it’s not fair for him to be out there every day to take care of somebody else’s job. I’m not going to do it. I don’t care what people say.

“I’m not going to make somebody suffer with somebody else not doing what they’re supposed to do. I’m not going to do it.”

Guillen said there have been no talks about possibly trading a starter.

“No, we don’t even talk about trade, no way,” he said. “The last thing we talk about is trade. We try to figure out how we’re going to play this and how we’re going to be a better ballclub. Right now we don’t have a close decision. We’re still talking to [general manager] Kenny [Williams] and Coop. We have ideas. The only thing is if Pena throws the ball better, then we’re set. We’re fine.”

Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate.

Pitch Type LWTS correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a particular pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches.

Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement.

Manager Ozzie Guillen said general manager Ken Williams is on the trip and the plan is to sit down and talk about how to handle the extra starting pitcher. The White Sox started a 10-game road trip with three games in Texas, followed by four games at Toronto and three more in Boston.

“Right now we have a plan,” Guillen said. “Maybe through this trip, but later on maybe not, because if we have some days off, somebody is going to not pitch in seven or eight days. I don’t know if we want to deal with that.”

Guillen and Williams will have a tough job at hand with six quality starters currently in the rotation. Jake Peavy will start Tuesday’s game and Gavin Floyd on Wednesday. Monday’s starter John Danks, Edwin Jackson, Philip Humber and ace Mark Buerhle are also currently in the rotation.

Guillen isn’t worried about telling one of them they’re going to the bullpen.

“It’s not about one guy,” Guillen said. “It’s about the ballclub. We don’t want to do it to anybody.”

‘‘It’s not about one guy; it’s about the ballclub,’’ Guillen said. ‘‘We don’t want to do it to anyone, but some guys can’t pitch with eight days’ rest.

‘‘Listen, they can think whatever they want to think. I have a job, and our job is to do the best for the team, not the best for the player. Sometimes when you do the best for the player, they don’t appreciate that, either. I will do what’s best for the ballclub.

‘‘They don’t have a choice because it’s about 25 guys. It’s about the Sox; it’s not about somebody’s name on the back. We’re going to do what’s best for the ballclub.’’

“The extra day is so big. Today should be my day. I have no problems pitching on this day. That extra day is big in recovering and it’s just one more day for you to feel even better than you already do.”It’s strange to be pitching in a six-man rotation — the Red Sox are the only other team to do it this season — but Peavy said it might help out all of the starters later in the season.”When you have six guys who are throwing the ball as well as we have, knock on wood, we have six guys who give us a chance every time we go out,” Peavy said. “I can’t see us staying in this the rest of the season, but I can’t see us not having a little bit of an advantage over guys in August and September when we have to be ‘whip hard,’ so to speak, going out of the back stretch. At that point in time, you’re letting it all hang out. I can see us being a little bit ahead of the pack.”

Guillen said he will talk to pitching coach Don Cooper in the coming days and the team will have a better idea of who might be relegated to bullpen duty. It could be that the staff wants to see John Danks’ start Monday to determine if he or Edwin Jackson is the one that will have to get by, for the time being anyway, on relief appearances.

There was some good news Monday night for John Danksdespite suffering his seventh consecutive loss to start the regular season.Manager Ozzie Guillen believes that Danks has pitched well enough to remain in the Chicago White Sox’s rotation even when they trim to a five-man alignment.”I think so,” Guillen said after Danks didn’t receive any run support in a 4-0 loss to Texas and Alexi Ogando, who improved to 5-0 with a 1.81 ERA. “I think he threw the ball well. I think he had really one bad game. We didn’t do anything for him. We don’t help him. That’s the problem. I think I’m very happy with the way he threw the ball.”

“Obviously everyone throwing the way we’re throwing, it’s going to be a tough call to do whatever they’re going to do,” Peavy said. “It’s not my call. I’m in it for as long as they want to do it or not do it.”

Peavy believes the starters would have no problem reverting to a normal five-man rotation.

“We’ve done it all our lives,” Peavy said. “We have such a routine that that extra day you can play with. And alter your routine and draw it out longer. But we have such a routine and are creatures of habit that I can easily pitch tonight and feel healthy and strong. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

In order to compensate for the loss of a middle reliever, one of the starters will be available in relief during the middle of their extended break. The exclusions to that possible role are Mark Buehrle and Gavin Floyd.

The six-man rotation will give the starters some relief since the Sox embark on a stretch of playing on 20 consecutive days without a scheduled day off starting Friday, and Guillen wants to ensure the health of Buehrle and Floyd through the entire season.

Manager Ozzie Guillen said he sees no reason not to stay with a six-man rotation if it works past the 20-day experimentation period that began with Phil Humber’s start against the Athletics on Friday night.

“If we like what we see, of course we’ll keep it at six,’’ Guillen said when asked if he can envision it in place deep into the summer. “Yes. Because I don’t see no reason to change it.’’

Santos wasn’t used Sunday the way a closer would normally be handled. When on the road in extra innings, teams typically save closers in case they take the lead and need to shut down the victory in the bottom of the inning. …

“[If I did,] all of a sudden, I have to stick with him,” Guillen said. “All of a sudden you don’t see him in the ninth and it’s, ‘What happened here? You said he was going to be the closer.’ When you are there, close the game. I think it’s too early to say this is the guy we are going to use. We’re not save that many games. But every time he’s there, he does the job. I hope he just wait a little bit for what’s going on and then we do something or tell him.”

Humber credited Cooper with helping him add a slider to his repertoire during spring training.

‘‘[Before] I was fastball, curve, change,’’ Humber said. ‘‘The slider takes a lot of pressure off my other breaking ball because it gives hitters something else to think about.’’

Humber has been using his slider early in counts and throwing the curve as his put-away pitch.

and

Right-hander Jesse Crain tinkered with a split-fingered grip on his changeup last year in Minnesota, refined it in spring training and has mastered it this season.

The pitch looks like a fastball, then sinks late.

‘‘It’s been good, something else to keeps hitters off balance,’’ said Crain, who also throws a good curve and plus-fastball. ‘‘It’s slower [around 83 mph], it kind of fades into a righty and fades away from a lefty. Got some jams from righties and swings and misses and rollovers from lefties.’’

The graphic above depicts all AL Central starting pitchers with greater than 40 innings pitched through May 18th. So far, this is the most surprising divisional breakdown I’ve done. Why? Simple. The White Sox.

Currently they have four starters with FIPs better than league average, and four of the top seven in the division. How have they given up so many runs this year? Their bullpen also has a sub-4 FIP. As someone who doesn’t follow the team closely, this is perplexing. With Jake Peavey seemingly set to pull a Bartolo Colon, that rotation could look even scarier.

The White Sox will use Gavin Floyd in Thursday’s finale of a brief two-game home series with the American League Central-leading Indians, flip-flopping with Phil Humber, who will now start Friday’s Interleague opener against the Dodgers.

Humber will have six days off between starts after throwing 82 pitches and six innings for a win over Oakland on Friday. Floyd actually will be working on regular rest in the context of this six-man rotation, having allowed five runs over 4 1/3 innings in Saturday’s loss to Oakland.

Floyd follows Jake Peavy and has a 4-3 career record with a 5.44 ERA against the Indians. Mark Buehrle and Edwin Jackson figure to follow Humber, with a Buehrle-Jon Garland matchup set up for Saturday.